


Two Boys

by orphan_account



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: M/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 03:05:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale of two boys who just barely managed to meet in the middle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Boys

Two boys  
Two boys born with one foot in the Midwest, and the other halfway to the coast.  
Opposite coasts.  
Two boys who just barely managed to meet in the middle.

Two boys  
Two escape routes.  
One slips out of mediocre Missouri between covers of books  
Befriending 20th century poets and drunken essayists  
Celebrating the birthdays and death-days of playwrights and novelists like national holidays  
Inking quotes on his wrists and forearms like promises to himself.  
The other runs until his thoughts are nothing but the blood rushing in his ears  
Explores every dark corner until he’s certain that any magic left hidden from a more exciting time has been extinguished  
Climbs until he’s left the realm of reality caught on branches far below.

Two boys  
Two troublemakers  
One spends nearly every other day in the office for “mouthing off.”  
“But it’s true!” he protests  
“But my father always taught me not to lie!”  
The other walks into fifth grade, bald and grounded, after deciding on a whim to take an electric razor to his head.

Two Boys  
Two-and-a-half years  
Hundreds of near misses  
One junior-year English class, with desks organized in alphabetical order  
One boy who hasn’t read a chapter of The Scarlet Letter all year  
A boy who still has the nerve to argue with the teacher after a made-up answer was deemed a “waste of time”  
One unexpected interruption  
One voice, growing steadier and louder and stronger as it continues on, as it flings textual support and historical background information and references to various scholarly journals in the face of a teacher who never saw it coming  
Two expressions of utter disbelief; one teacher, one student  
One hastily-scrawled note passed underneath a desk:  
“I don’t know where the hell that came from, but if I buy you lunch or something, will you partner with me for the next group project?”  
One spit-sealed handshake  
One unbreakable partnership


End file.
